A Film Unfinished

An examination of outtakes from an infamous Nazi propaganda film exposes how the Reich manufactured scenes of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto.

Film Signature Image
Series
Independent Lens
Premiere Date
May 3, 2011
Length
90 minutes
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2010 Sundance Film Festival-World Cinema Documentary Editing Award
  • Nominated laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2011 News and Documentary Emmy Awards-Outstanding Historical Programming – Long Form
    • Director

    Yael Hersonski

    Yael Hersonski has been working as a freelance director and editor since graduating with high honors from the Sam Spiegal Film & Television School seven years ago. After serving as the content editor of the chief weekly documentary program of Channel 10 (an Israeli commercial television station), which won the Israeli Academy Award for Best… Show more Documentary Television Program in 2004, has been directing documentary and fictional drama programs for Israeli television. A Film Unfinished is her first feature documentary film. Show less

    Senior Producer

    Noemi Schory

    Noemi Schory, documentary film director and producer, founded Belfilms in 1988 as an independent production house, active in Israeli and many international co-productions, primarily in the documentary field. In 2005 was elected president of INPUT, the international public television conference. She is the head of the Film Department at Hamidrasha… Show more School of Art, Beit Berl College. Show less

    Producer

    Itay Ken-Tor

    Itay Ken-Tor, graduate of the Tel Aviv University Department of Film and Television, is a documentary film and television director and producer. Since 2000 he has been working at Belfilms as director and producer of documentary series as well as single feature documentaries. In the last three years he has been managing Belfilms.

    We fund untold stories for public media.

    Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS.

    MORE INFO

    The Film

    At the end of WWII, 60 minutes of raw film, having sat undisturbed in an East German archive, was discovered. Shot by the Nazis in Warsaw in May 1942, and labeled simply "Ghetto," this footage quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record of the Warsaw Ghetto. However, the later discovery of this long-missing reel complicates earlier readings of the footage. A Film Unfinished presents the raw footage in its entirety, carefully noting fictionalized sequences (including a staged dinner party) falsely showing "the good life" enjoyed by Jewish urbanites, and probes deep into the making of a now-infamous Nazi propaganda film.

    Topics